To have a note of reality in our theology, we must see what actually takes place in the life of a man. In the last century much was written about man; new search was made in psychology, in ethics, in anthropology, and especially in sociology; and some of this search resulted in positive contribution to our knowledge; but from nearly all of this scientific work we turn away in disappointment. It is not merely that the view is partial, that the selection of data is often arbitrary, that the intrinsic human elements are never all vitally combined -- the root of the failure lies deeper. These writers themselves care for science and not for living men. They have not the eye of love, and so they do not and cannot find a real man at all. It seems like "a spacious phrase," but it is the truth, that in the poetry of Robert Browning one can come closer to the whole reality of human life (than he can in any scientific treatise published in the last hundred years....

I too may fail, for the task is oftentimes baffling in the extreme; but I am eager to find a man. I want to see, and then to help you to see, a real man's real life -- not to be caught and held fast in the accidental overlay, not to be misled by the conventional estimate, not to be swept away by the scientific tendency, but to see for myself a real man's real life ... And to be true, patiently, comprehensively true, to our own fellow, the common man, (God help us *here!) to be open to the meanings of all things in his experience, low things as well as high things, high things as well as low things; to enter into his most flashing and evasive moods; to commune with him as friend communes with friend -- yes, to love him with an everlasting love; and out of all this, to tell the entire wonder of his story. . .

And I would discover, not only what a man is by nature, but also what he may become by the grace of God. To borrow a line from John Bunyan's quaint Apology, I want to show you how a man

"runs and runs
Till he unto the gate of glory comes."

-- From the notes for a course of Seminary Lectures.